sourstuff

English

Etymology

From sour +‎ stuff. Calque of German Sauerstoff (“oxygen”) and/or Dutch zuurstof (“oxygen”), both loose loan translations of French oxygène. See oxygen for more.

Noun

sourstuff (uncountable)

1. (chemistry, nonstandard, science fiction, rare) Oxygen.
   • 1887, The Electrical journal, volume 18, page 482:

     This is approximately the heat of exploding what the Germans call bang-gas (mixture of sourstuff and waterstuff), the result being liquid.

   • 1976, Poul Anderson, Homebrew:

     For an outshow, the gang of water has two waterstuff unclefts bound to one sourstuff uncleft; the gang of rust has two iron and three sourstuff unclefts; [...]

   • 1997, Poul Anderson, All One Universe, →ISBN:

     Thus, everyday sourstuff has eight neitherbits with its eight firstbits, but there are also kinds with five, six, seven, nine, ten, and eleven neitherbits. A samestead is known by the tale of both kernel motes, so that we have sourstuff-13, sourstuff-14, and so on, with sourstuff-16 being by far the mostfound.

   • 2013, Harry Turtledove & L. Sprague deCamp, Down in the Bottomlands: And Other Places, →ISBN:

     “Best you and your thane don your sourstuff masks now, Judge Scoglund,” Ankowaljuu said, returning to English so Park and Dunedin could not misunderstand him.